Selfishness Signals Status

For me, the answer for each question appears to be "both".

1. Standing up straight-- High: Politician addressing an audience, wanting to show confidence Low: Soldier, at attention

2. Saying what's on your mind, without thinking it through-- High: Confident person, assured of their status in the group Low: Person revealing emotions which are considered taboo to discuss.

3. Making an effort to have a pleasant conversation-- High: Skilled businessman or other "people person" trying motivated to accomplish a positive outcome with that person. Low: Service industry person who must be deferential to keep their job

4. Wearing the most comfortable possible clothes-- High: The business owner who can wear whatever they want and still be paid attention to because of their innate value Low: The slacker who has stopped caring about their sweapants and stained shirt

5. Apologizing to someone you've wronged-- High: The conscientious, strong, professional person with integrity who has the wisdom do recognize their mistake and seeks to keep lines of communication open and maintain an honest and fair relationship. Low: Someone who must apologize for violating a social norm.

6. Blowing your nose in front of people-- High: A person assured in their humanity who doesn't feel the need to hide their imperfections Low: A person who lacks self-consciousness or "good breeding" or has stopped caring about their image.

7. Asking for permission-- High: Someone with values who respects others' boundaries Low: Someone who must appeal to authority to accomplish something

8. Showing off-- High: Someone who wants to achieve certain ends by a deliberate display of talent Low: An immature person caught up in their shallow drives, who is not be that impressive, and is not impressing anyone that matters.

Some things the examples seem to have in common is:

-High status people have innate worth and are assured of their value. They do the same things but because they want to achieve something that is not necessary. i.e. they are free to do it.

-Low Status people are of low value to others. They do the same things because they have to do it or they will be punished.

Imagine that, within your group, you're in a position where everyone wants to please you and no one can afford to challenge you. What does this mean for your behavior? It means you get to act selfish -- focusing on what makes you most pleased, and becoming less sensitive to lower-grade pleasure stimuli.

This is not particularly accurate, or, more precisely, I'd like to see evidence that this is how people act. The president of the US, for example, cannot act strictly selfishly. Kings of old generally couldn't either - they had nobles to keep happy and so forth. While there are cases where selfishness is an option because of high status, there are many cases where people prevent themselves from being successful because they are selfish. Indeed, there are many people who are unsuccessful because they are particularly disagreeable - they'd need to be high status to get away with their behaviour, and they're not, so they don't. Thus, merely observing that someone is selfish is, in a Bayesian sense, not even necessarily evidence that they are high status.

This post is yet further evidence that one should approach any status-based explanation with extreme skepticism. Saying that "Standing up straight is low status" seems completely wrong to me. I coach collegiate public speaking competitions, and having erect posture contributes very heavily to one's presence. Standing up straight is something naturally done by confident, successful people, in my experience, and thus signals status. Likewise, slouching or trying to appear small seems like a logically low-status thing, as you are trying to prevent yourself from looking like a threat. Similarly, blowing your nose in a group of people seems like something the extremely socially awkward (or elderly) would do. Some high-status people could get away with it, but they'd be high status despite, not because of this activity.

The correct way to establish X as a high status activity would be, it seems, to show that, "If you take 1000 people who do X, Y are high status." The higher Y, the more X shows status. Obviously this is rough, but the point is you can't do it a priori; saying "X is high status" should reliably predict something about people who do X.

I think a much better, more general principle is "you gain status among members of a group by making efforts which have no other point, because that shows you care enough about the group to be loyal and commit your own resources." This is a large part, for example, of why fraternities haze people- anyone willing to go through the hazing must care a lot about getting into the fraternity.

"1. Standing up straight is low-status, because you're obviously doing it to make an impression on others -- there's no first-order benefit to yourself."

In general, making a conscious effort to do anything social is low-status, because it shows your unconscious systems are unskilled and inexperienced. So, consciously making an effort to stand up straight (if other people realize you're doing it) is bad.

"2. Saying what's on your mind is high-status, because you're doing something pleasurable. This signal is most reliable when what you say doesn't have any intellectual merit."

Most people are, frankly, stupid and don't give a damn about intellectual merit. The high-status things to say are those which match closely with what members of the group are expected to say, because saying those sorts of things shows that you have inside information, you've thought a lot about the group, etc. People are almost never expected to talk about things with intellectual merit, and so talking about things with intellectual merit is generally low-status, to my perpetual annoyance.

"3. Making an effort to have a pleasant conversation is low-status. It's high-status to talk about what you care about."

Again, the highest status thing to do is having a pleasant conversation without appearing to be exerting an effort to be pleasant.

"4. Wearing the most comfortable possible clothes is high-status, because you're clearly benefiting yourself. (Dressing in fashionable clothes is also high-status, through a different inferential pathway.)"

The most important thing here, I think, is not comfort, or even fashion- it's conformity. For instance, suppose you are hired at an investment bank, a company that cares a lot about status and appearance. There's a very specific set of things you're supposed to wear (http://www.mergersandinquisitions.com/investment-banking-wardrobe-men/), and not wearing them (no matter what you are wearing) marks you as clueless and therefore low-status.

"6. Blowing your nose is high-status because it's pleasurable and shows that you aren't affected enough by others to stop."

I think you're confusing standard signaling and countersignaling a lot. Standard signaling is much more common than countersignaling, and countersignaling can only be done when you're already established as a high status person.

"7. Asking for permission is low-status. Compare: recognizing that proceeding would be pleasurable, and believing that you are immune to any negative consequences."

Agreed somewhat, but this is also a large blow to the status of the person whose permission you're supposed to ask, who then may try to punish you. See: public school teachers.

"8. Showing off is low-status, because it reveals that the prospect of impressing your peers drives you to do things which aren't first-order selfish. (Of course, the thing you are showing off might legitimately signal status.)"

The sorts of showing off that are done in such a way that it's obvious that you know the rules about how to show off without lowering your status are high status. See, for instance, http://markbao.com/ .

Note that these only work if the group also knows that the person is capable of all these low-status indicators. For example, slouching, not understanding social-niceties and manners, not being able to converse, not being able to afford nice clothes or have the sense of fashion to pick decent sets, or not having anything worth showing off are all low-status indicators. It's demonstrating the option, not the necessity of these behaviors that is high-status.

.... through a different inferential pathway...

I read these examples and it seems to me like a clear case of rational analysis going crazy. You see, there is no systematic basis for the correctness of these interpretations. It may have been established that selfishness can act as a valid interpretation for these examples, but what says that this interpretation is necessarily more correct than any other? Or even that there is a correct interpretation? These questions are far more important, and without answering them, these interpretations are frankly worthless. It's like throwing a fishing line into the pacific ocean, catching a paltry fish or two, and saying "Aha! Now I know what's there!"

As far as I can tell, no one has quite as much status as you're describing, but the best test would probably be to study major dictators, but not expect ordinary high status people to be on a continuum with them

In particular, displays of generosity are a common way of showing status.

Wearing comfortable clothes as a signal of status isn't typical of all civilizations. For a counter-example, consider the Elizabethans.

As with standing up straight where you didn't include a relaxed vertical posture, you're leaving out the practical middle ground about conversation. There's something other than "having a pleasant conversation" and dumping whatever nonsense comes into your head-- it's receiving and conveying information, possibly rather sharply.

You may be leaving out that people at the top have competitors-- they can treat people with substantially lower status indifferently or cruelly, but they can't get away with that forever with those who have a chance at gunning for the top, or who can chip away chunks of influence.

Hitler was nice to his secretary. What do you suppose was going on there?

Observation 4 seems directly contradicted by my personal observations in the corporate setting, where "mere" software engineers wear jeans and t-shirts and their managers tend to wear more formal clothing (shirt, tie, suit) the higher in the hierarchy you go.

Observation 6 seems to make a truckload of cultural assumptions. In workplace settings I'm familiar with (I live in France) it's common to leave boxes of tissues around, and people prefer someone who blows their nose in a group to someone who sniffles constantly. Now in Japan for instance I understand it's an insult to blow your nose in front of someone.

More generally I would get more value out of these discussions if I knew some "elementary" posts to refer to, normatively, when reading about elaborations on the concepts of "status" or "signaling". I notice that recent posts about these topics have contained no links to previous posts or posts in the Sequences.

So I'm still not sure there are proper hypotheses behind these terms, such that if I'm reading a discussion on status I can "taboo" the term by myself and replace it with its expansion, to see whether someone taking part in the discussion is bringing in extra assumptions that are only connotationally present in the term "status".

IAWYP, and I think you're getting bashed with disagreement in part because you needed some disclaimers. We can all think of counterexamples, but all else being equal you can often tell the hierarchy in an unfamiliar social group by who acts the most selfishly versus who is looking to please others.

This is, of course, not an endorsement of the unrestricted practice of selfishness, especially around here.

The problem with trying to define a list of high status actions is that they are context dependent.

Counter-signalling means that, in a particular context, it could be higher status to perform in a manner that, in any other context, would appear low status.

Under most general circumstances though, good posture is high status (because the assumption is that they just stand like that - not that they are standing like that to make an impression). In general, people don't think as carefully as you about motivations. You are over-iterating your thinking beyond what an average person would ever consider. Go out and look at people on the street and see how the high and low status people stand.

OK, the point of the post was to identify and explain a principle that ties together a set of high-status mannerisms that would otherwise seem disjoint.

The idea that selfishness signals status makes testable predictions that most LW readers would not have made, and it looks like a lot of commenters are defying the data, but I think it is data that people with more anecdotal evidence about how "normal" people act can confirm.

To echo others, you can't readily define absolute high or low status behaviors. Here's the catch, status is like poker. When you make a high status action it's not immediately asserting high status, it's making a bid for high status. The game changes depending on who you're playing against. As anyone who plays poker knows, the same hand will be played completely differently depending on what sort of hands you estimate you're up against. You might start out modestly, but start getting aggressive when you see how weak everyone else is and vice versa. Others want to make sure that they fold to the actual winning hand and not to a bluff.

edit: I'm sexist and always forget this bit: women and men signal status differently. male status often revolves around displays of abundant resources. female status revolves around altruism (being the "best" caregiver for males and children).

Selfishness is a counter signal/handicap http://lesswrong.com/lw/1sa/things_you_cant_countersignal/

How it is interpreted based entirely on your positive singles. Counter signals at best enhance the underlining signal.

If you are high status despite being rude then you must have some trait that compensates for your flaw. If you are low status and rude then you have no trait to compensate for your rudeness.

3 is high status 4 and 6 are low status, as all demonstrate self-control, social clue, etc.

In general higher testosterone signals higher status and produces more generous behavior. It does, however, trigger less fearful and less risk averse behavior.

For reasons I perhaps don't fully understand this, and threads like it are unsettling to me. Doesn't high status confer the ability (and possibly duty, in some contexts) to treat others better, to carry their pack so to speak? Further, acting high status isn't necessary at all if you actually have it (it being the underlying competence status (supposedly, ideally) signifies. I am a high status athlete (in a tiny, circumscribed world) and in social situations try to signify humility, so others won't feel bad. They can't keep up, and if made to feel so, will not want to come again. Maybe in this forum we just want to drop anyone who can't keep the pace. If I see someone acting supercilious/indifferent, signaling status on all frequencies, I will infer you have something to hide, or strong feelings of incompetence that need to be stroked. Now we can play the game of you know I know high status signallers may be compensating, but it's a silly game, because faking status, if that's what you want, is only a temporary fiction. Any close relationship will soon scrape through that whitewash. Unfortunately, (I think) poseurs do manage to get by quite well in the world, by exactly the techniques being discussed here. Maybe everybody should get a tattoo with their VO2max and IQ right on their forehead?

(Voted back up towards 0.)

1. Standing up straight is low-status, because you're obviously doing it to make an impression on others -- there's no first-order benefit to yourself.

False. Slouching is a submissive gesture. It is signalling that you are not making a challenge to the more dominant members. Standing up straight but in a relaxed way is higher status. A strong core, head naturally raised, with gender specific variations. Remainder of the body should not be rigid but convey a balance of comfort and control. Gender specific variations tend to emphasize sexual organs in an offhand manner (where the low status signal is the reverse.)

1. Saying what's on your mind is high-status, because you're doing something pleasurable. This signal is most reliable when what you say doesn't have any intellectual merit.

Agree up to the comma. (The rest varies with context.)

1. Making an effort to have a pleasant conversation is low-status. It's high-status to talk about what you care about.

Yes.

1. Wearing the most comfortable possible clothes is high-status, because you're clearly benefiting yourself. (Dressing in fashionable clothes is also high-status, through a different inferential pathway.)

I don't agree with this one. Of the things people care about enough to signal through clothes, comfort tends to be low.

1. Apologizing is low-status because you're obviously not doing it for yourself.

I don't think adding 'because you're obviously not doing it for yourself' aids in understanding the apologizing status-dynamic much...

1. Blowing your nose is high-status because it's pleasurable and shows that you aren't affected enough by others to stop.

You find that pleasurable? (Agree with the 'affected enough' part.)

1. Asking for permission is low-status. Compare: recognizing that proceeding would be pleasurable, and believing that you are immune to any negative consequences.

Pleasure is a distraction again. Just say 'want'.

1. Showing off is low-status, because it reveals that the prospect of impressing your peers drives you to do things which aren't first-order selfish. (Of course, the thing you are showing off might legitimately signal status.)

More or less.

Proper posture tends to be more comfortable; surely this is a benefit to myself.

I also apologize to people when I have wronged them, not because they are higher-status than me, but because I do not like being a jackass.

Wow, impressive! This leads to a conundrum -- say that I'm trying to acquire high status to get power to do good, but acquiring and signaling that status requires selfish behavior. It means that even a utility-maximizing strategy could be casually interpreted by many as "hypocritical". This dilemma underscores the hypothesis that in order to achieve any semblance of generally self-consistent "good" requires a society made up of agents besides human ones, agents that can modify their status-appraisal mechanisms to a significant extent.

How could you act indifferent if you weren't high-status?

You could just be clueless.

You are describing second order status effects (status signaled to those analyzing your behavior for first order signaling motivations), which should be corrections to first order effects (status signaled to those taking your actions at face value), as if they were the whole story.